


As Alive as He Could Be

by snowkatze



Category: Carry On - Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Angst, First Kiss, M/M, Returned from the dead kiss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-24
Updated: 2017-09-24
Packaged: 2019-01-04 15:36:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12171789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/snowkatze/pseuds/snowkatze
Summary: The Mage tells Simon that Baz is dead. Simon is not himself afterwards.





	As Alive as He Could Be

The Pitch boy is dead.

It's five one-syllable words that keep echoing in my mind.

The Pitch boy is dead.

It's not even his name. He just called him 'the Pitch boy'.

His name is. Was. His name was Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch, but everyone called him Baz, even me. Baz is dead. That's what he should've said.

Baz.

Grey eyes, black hair. The most cunning magician alive. Or, not alive at all.

He was supposed to be immortal, or eternally undead.

But he said it, so it must be true.

The Pitch boy is dead.

 

The Pitch boy is dead, and the days are grey, and I can't remember why I'm doing this. I look down and there's a knife in my hand. Why am I holding it? My fingers clench around the handle. Have I been angry? I feel – nothing. Empty. There's a sour cherry scone on my plate. Not even that scone will be able to fill the emptiness. There's no point in putting butter on it, so I put down the knife. Penny gives me a look, so I take a small bite of the scone. It tastes dry.

 

The Pitch boy is dead, but his ghost lives on in my mind. He's always been hiding in there, and he never let me go. I see his face in front of me so clearly, and people tend to soften and idealize their memories, but I know for a fact that his face was just as perfect as I imagine it. Maybe even a little more. I see him on the foot ball pitch, and in the dining hall, and in the class room. I hear his voice, he's throwing insults at me.

“Simon,” he says. No. It's Penny who says my name.

I look at her.  
“He would've called me Snow,” I say. She answers, but I don't hear anything but his voice.

 

The Pitch boy is dead. He died, not me. I win, he loses. But I don't feel like a winner. I feel like I died, too, like all I am right now is the thoughts of him in my mind.

It feels like I'm the one who died.

He's here, within me, but he's not real.

And I don't have a reason any more. The Mage asks for my help, but why would I help him? Baz is dead, he said it himself. There's no reason for anything any more.

I was good.

He was bad.

Bad is dead. What am I supposed to believe? Yet good doesn't win. I don't win.

I was wrong, I think.

I wasn't good, he wasn't bad. I was broken, and he was broken, too. We matched.

Why would I help him? He said it himself.

 

The Mage is yelling at me, but all I hear are strings of words.

“Baz Pitch is good with words,” I tell him. “You should talk to him.”

Oh, he had his way with words, that boy. He could spin them together and make gold out of straw.

Handsome as the devil.

Nobody knew him like I did. Nobody cries like I do every night.

I eat salt and vinegar crisps on his bed. It smells of cedar and bergamot. I don't open the window.

 

I want to draw his face, because I'm afraid I'll forget. I set my pen on the paper, but I don't know where to start. I've never been an artist, and he deserves to be painted as if by Van Gough or Picasso, or whatever fancy artist his favourite was. He doesn't deserve the mess my hands keep creating.

Was he my enemy?

Maybe we could've been friends. Maybe, in a parallel universe, he came back and together we solved his mother's murder. Maybe in that universe, we kept in touch and we were friends.

Maybe we couldn't have been friends then either.

I end up drawing a scrawly heart on the sheet of paper.

 

It's a cloudy afternoon when I finally go nuts. Penny is sitting next to me, trying to explain last subject's matter, when the door snaps open.

My eyes are drawn to the movement immediately and I look up.

It's just a silhouette at first, but then he steps closer.

 

The Pitch boy is dead.

 

That's what he said.

 

“Penny.”

 

I say.  
  
“I think I've gone crazy.”  
  
I say.

 

His hair is longer than I remember. I want to run my hands through it. He looks skinnier, but I'm certain that it's him. And that means I'm out of my mind.

But I'll accept that if it means I get to see him again. I stand up and stumble forward. He lifts his head and his eyes meet mine.

“Either we've both gone crazy at the exact same time,” Penny says, “or...”  
No. Fuck.

I'm afraid that I'll hope, and then it gets taken away.

I see desperation and longing in his eyes.

But he can't be real.

I'm insane.

That's the only logical explanation.

 

But I don't care.

 

I run towards him, and suddenly, he's running, too. We slow down just before we crash into each other.

His skin is pale as ever, but his face seems hollow. Fuck. He looks more dead than alive, but he looks alive, at least.

He opens his mouth to say something, but I don't let him.

I don't want him to destroy the illusion.

This isn't even real. It can't be.

So, I do what I've wanted to do for longer than I realized.

I kiss him.

I bury my hands in his hair and pull him closer, tug him, roughly, just to make him respond to me. But he stays still underneath my lips and hands. I push myself against him.

_I'm alive,_ I want to tell him,  _are you?_

But he seems too surprised, and I think, maybe he is real, and this is really weird for him, but no. If he were real, he would push me off. He would react in some way. He wouldn't just stand there like a lost puppet.

Suddenly, I feel his hand on my back. His touch is gentle and light, but it's there. I can feel him. And then, suddenly, he kisses me back. He's not sharp, or wild, he's soft and careful, but he's real. There's real hair underneath my fingers, his skin is real against my lips.

I press my palm against his chest.

There it is.

His heart is beating. It's beating. It really is. Slowly, but steady.

He's not only real.

He's alive.

I'm out of breath, but I won't break apart from him. I won't let him go. I'm afraid he'll vanish as soon as I step back. I'm afraid he'll dissolve right underneath my touch. So I just keep kissing him, and he keeps kissing me.

He's not a ghost. It's him who steps back first, and he gasps for air, because he needs air, because he's alive. His skin is cold, but his lips burn under mine. And there's a spark in his eyes.

“Snow,” he breathes, “Fuck.”  
I smile.

He called me Snow. It's really him.

The Pitch boy is alive.

 


End file.
